Dural Sport & Leisure Centre

Media Release


From the Hapi Isles to the Lucky Country

A football game is a stage where the poor can match the rich. Poverty is invisible on the football field, where passion counts for all and wealth for none. In Brazil, Futsal (Fifa 5-a-side Football) is pure equality football – it is the football game of the heart. The small field means that the game can be played down alleyways and on patches of dirt, next to the desolation of Rio’s proliferous shanty towns. The small field also means more touches on the ball, which allows the talented poor boy to showcase his ginga and to rise above his wealthy neighbour. When the Brazilians play Futsal, the players do not need the expensive strips of the futebol clubs, or the latest style in footwear: all the players need is to play.

Similarly, this distilled and quintessential game has popularised itself in the Solomon Islands, a country where recovery from political corruption and civil war is still some way off; but also where local kids have found joy in every afternoon kick-about, bare-footed.

On Monday 22nd August, two 15 year-old boys from the Solomon Islands began a long-term Futsal exchange programme to Australia. Elliot Ragomo and Jack Wetney, both talented players from Honiara, were selected by their coaches and peers to participate in the inaugural 10-month long programme. As part of the programme, the two boys will participate in local Futsal competition at Dural Sport & Leisure Centre, as well as compete for DSLC’s representative Futsal teams in the Soccer NSW Futsal Premier League competition, which will begin in October.

DSLC Futsal Club Coach, Rob Varela, said, ‘The boys will bring an exciting brand of skilful Futsal to our teams, and that will present a challenge to our regular representative players to raise their own abilities. We hope that the regular training will provide the Solomon boys with the opportunity to learn about the discipline required to succeed in Futsal at the highest level’.

Furthermore, DSLC has organised an inaugural tour to Europe, for elite Futsal players aged 15/16, in June 2006. Both Ragomo and Wetney will have the opportunity to participate in the trip, which will encompass a fortnight in both Italy and Spain.

However, with a literacy rate of only 30.3%, and with only 24% of children reaching secondary education in the Solomon Islands, the exchange programme will involve greater concerns than just sport. During their term in Australia, Ragomo and Wetney will study at William Clarke College, an Anglican school based at Kellyville. The two boys will participate in school life as regular, everyday students, and will complete this year enrolled in Year 8.

Since 2000, Dural Sport & Leisure Centre, a ministry of Dural Baptist Church has been assisting Solomon Island communities to forge stronger ties through Futsal, and has helped indigenous people to strengthen a previously unknown sport into a national pastime. Centre Manager and Church Pastor Brian Codrington said “Our aim is to make the difference in lives physically, relationally, emotionally and spiritually.” As part of its support, DSLC has sponsored a number of Solomon Island junior teams to come out to Australia every year, to contest the Australian Futsal Championships.

The $15.000 cost of the programme has been funded with the support of Michelago (an Australian company with interests in the Solomon Islands), Westpac (Solomon Islands), the Solomon Islands Association of NSW, and Dural Sport & Leisure Centre. William Clarke College has generously committed to fully support the boys’ education needs, including tuition fees, uniforms, and excursions.



Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com